Rebellion
by The Crownless Queen
Summary: In a world where people with soulmarks disappear in government facilities to get experimented on, Hermione wakes the night of her twenty-first birthday to find that, somewhere in the world she has a soulmate. She's forced to flee in the night, running away from everything she's ever known. AU, for Jade.
1. Chapter 1: in the dark of night

For Jade, who prompted me HermioneFleur and probably didn't expect me to start another MC. Or maybe she did – my teammates do know me pretty well by now.

Written for Hogwart's Romance Awareness Challenge, Day Twenty-Nine: Soulmates in a world where the concept is so rare, they'd be banished/shunned/experimented on, and the MC Monday Challenge.

This is a no-magic!AU.

 _Word count:_ 1714

 **Chapter 1:** **in the dark of night**

Harry is the one who wakes her in the middle of the night, shaking her urgently.

"Hermione, come on, you need to go," he says, urgency in his voice and panic in his eyes.

"Whatizzit," Hermione yawns, still half asleep. Still, she runs a hand through her bushy hair, wincing as she pulls on the dreadful knots that appear every night and slides herself off the bed. When Harry sounds that concerned, it's important.

There are lights outside when there shouldn't be, and Harry is digging around her room and stuffing clothes and other things that vanish too quickly from her eyesight to identify into a black, sturdy backpack she knows belongs to him. Hermione suddenly feels much more awake, adrenaline flooding through her veins.

"What's happening?" she hisses through her teeth, mindful not to let the panic that grips her heart in its icy tendrils show in her voice.

Even with only a sliver of moonlight getting in through the window - not accompanied by the yellow light of torches - it's easy to spot Harry's wince. "You got your mark tonight," he states dryly, like it's not a death sentence for her, like this doesn't mean the government will take her and she'll never see the light of day again.

 _(Harry's parents were soulmates, and there's a reason he never talks about them, never talks about how bad he himself had it until tests revealed he would never have a soulmate and was let go, still covered in needle marks and blood filled with drugs Hermione's parents hadn't known the name for._

 _She'll never regret the day he appeared on their doorstep; eleven, filthy and trembling, eyes so empty he looked like his world had ended, the day she gained a brother, but she'll always hate what happened to him to get him in her life)_

"I what?" Hermione yelps, scrambling to look at her wrist. There is a mark there, the outline of a name in a handwriting not her own, barely visible but slowly filling in. Oh god, this cannot be happening.

She doesn't realize she's said this out loud until Harry grabs her by the shoulders and pulls her into a hug. He's shorter than her, and younger and it took them months to get him used to touch that wasn't meant to hurt, but now he gives great hugs, even if it's rare for him to initiate them.

"Shh," he whispers in her ear, rubbing soothing circles on her back, "it's all gonna be fine, you'll see. I won't let them get you."

"How did they even know I got my mark when _I_ didn't know about it?"

Harry pulls back, eyes shadowed. He bites his lips, concerned. "I don't know. They must have some kind of technology that let them know that you got your mark." His green eyes sharpen. When the light outside reflects on his glasses, for a moment he looks dangerous, and she shivers, even if she knows he would never hurt her.

But he would hurt people trying to hurt her, and then he'd get hurt in the process. Maybe even die - he's of no value to the people that are coming after her, after all.

"Come with me," she pleads. "I can't do this alone."

He smiles gently, pushing the bag toward her. "Yes, you can. Hermione, you're the bravest person I know, and the smartest, and the strongest. You don't need me."

" _You'_ re the bravest person _I_ know," Hermione retorts, but she takes the bag with a sad smile.

Harry shakes his head gently and with one last press of his hands on his shoulders, retreats. "I'll pack you some food, you should get dressed."

Nodding numbly, Hermione obeys. This still feels unreal, but she hurries to put on a clean shirt and jeans anyway, checking in the bag quickly to see if Harry hadn't forgotten anything important.

He hadn't, but Hermione almost wishes he had, if only to delay her having to go down to the kitchen and leave by even an instant.

"Here," Harry says as soon as she enters the kitchen, showing a pack wrapped in tinfoil in her hands. "This should keep for a while."

"You're awfully well-prepared for this," Hermione notes, inspecting the package swiftly before pushing it into the backpack that she then swings on her shoulders.

Harry smiles humorlessly. In the dark kitchen, only lit by the green and blue lights of the appliances, it looks glum.

"I had to be, in case they changed their mind." In case they came back for him, he means, and Hermione's heart clenches at the thought.

"We wouldn't have let them take you."

"You wouldn't have had a choice," Harry corrects her. He sighs, eyes shining wetly, and draws her into another hug. "I'll miss you. Stay safe."

"I'll miss you too," Hermione replies, throat thick with emotions. "You sure you can't come with me?" she asks again, smiling through her tears.

Harry looks pained. "I wish I could, really, I do. But you know they'd find me wherever we'd go - and I can't let them have you." He points at the barcode on his neck, the tattoo that always makes Hermione's blood boil. The tattoo _they_ gave him.

The moment stretches on, and Hermione wishes it could last forever. She feels safe here and now, enclosed in her brother's arms, and she has a feeling she won't feel safe for much longer.

Still, she's the first one to pull back, wiping her tears.

"Any advice?" she asks.

Harry nods, blinking away a few tears of his own. "Keep away from the main roads, don't trust anybody you don't know and always assume that the people you do know are being followed so they can find you, and don't show your mark to anyone. Oh, and buy a lot of concealer - I put some of your mum's in your bag, as well as money, and you should always keep your mark covered with it."

"That's all?" Hermione asks, foot twitching nervously. She's trying not to be disappointed, but all of this is stuff she could have guessed on her own.

Harry rolls his eyes, undoubtedly aware of what she's thinking of. He hands her a card - white paper, thicker around the edges and embossed with some kind of lettering. She traces it with her fingertips slowly. These aren't any letters or symbols she knows, but if Harry's giving this to her, they can't be the gibberish they seem to be.

"What is it?" she asks.

"It's…" His head jerks around. Outside, voices are growing closer. "Shit, we're running out of time, you need to go."

He pushes her toward the back door. "Go!" he repeats, eyes wild. " _Please_."

Hermione nods, fingers still clenched around the card. "What is this?" she asks again.

Outside, the voices grow closer still. Hermione's heart is pounding in her chest now, and Harry looks moments away from running to the entrance to greet them. "Please, Harry, you have to tell me."

Harry bites his lips, torn. "There's no time," he hisses. "Hermione, I wish I could tell you everything, but you have to trust me. _Please_ ," he repeats, " _go_. Now, before it's too late."

"Of course I trust you," Hermione replies. She's surprised to find that Harry actually relaxes a little at her words.

"Good," he says, gently pushing her out the door. He closes his hands on hers, the white card now clenched in her palm. He's staring straight into her eyes, and she doesn't think she's ever seen anyone look more determined before. He looks like a hero. "Then you'll know when to use this," he says, smirking a little. "Stay safe," he adds, oddly tender.

"Only if you do," Hermione retorts, this dialogue familiar enough. It is weird to know that this time, Harry won't be by her side to drag her into the trouble that seems to follow him everywhere.

"Always," Harry replies. "Now go, and whatever you hear, don't stop. I'll be fine. I swear."

Hermione nods, and with a heavy heart, she sets into the night, running through deserted streets as far and as fast as her legs will carry her. Luckily, they leave not far from town, and it's easily to get lost in the winding streets - or to lose someone.

Behind her, angry voices ring out in the darkness, but Hermione is viciously glad for whatever twist of fate it is that means she can't make out any words. And suddenly, a gunshot, and then another.

Silence. Hermione can't hear raised voices anymore.

She keeps running, tears streaming down her face. If Harry's dead - please let him be alive, please let him be alive (even if Hermione can't imagine a scenario in which Harry's survive being shot) - then he gave his life so that she could run, so that she could be safe.

And even if he's not, she still owes it to him to get away; and so she keeps running, vision blurry and heart pounding painfully in her chest.

 _Whoever you are_ , she thinks at whoever's name is about to appear on her wrist, _you better be worth all of this_.

 _ **Elsewhere, four hours and twenty-two minutes earlier.**_

Fleur jerks away with a scream. Her wrist is burning, letters branding themselves anew on burned flesh.

"No, no, no," she murmurs, clutching her arm to her chest. "Please no," she chants.

She knows what this means: somewhere out there, her soulmate just turned twenty-one, and her name is showing up on her wrist, just as hers is appearing on Fleur's.

She's still chanting - begging - "No" when the men in white enter her room, dragging her away.

Her last thought before the needle pierces her neck and the drugs sweeps her consciousness away is that she hopes her soulmate can forgive her.

After all, it's because of Fleur that they know her name already, that they've known it for years.

 _Hermione Granger_. She's always liked the sound of it. She hopes she's a nice woman, though Fleur doubts she'll stay nice very long. Nobody ever does, once they're caught, and being caught is inevitable.

 _Please_ , _please forgive me._


	2. Chapter 2: on the road

Happy birthday Jade! I hope you like this chapter!

At everyone else: thank you for your support, it means a lot to me – try not to hate me too much for that ending, and see you next week!

 _Word count:_ 2618

 **Chapter 2:** **on the road**

 _ **Two months later, England**_

It had never seemed quite this hard, in her books, to stay on the run for weeks on end. Hermione feels betrayed - she had known they were fiction, and they had been mostly Harry's and her father's kind of books anyway, but still. Books weren't supposed to lie that much.

Leaving London behind had been the first natural step of this journey, the first thought on her mind, but it hasn't been an easy one.

She'll come back one day, or at least she hopes she'll be able to, but for now, it's probably better if she gets as far away as possible from the city in which the government is searching for her. She even might have to leave the country, at this point, and the thought is as daunting as it is frightening.

She misses her family - her parents, even if she hadn't lived with them in years, but most of all Harry, who had moved away with her because as he had told everyone, "Hermione would get so lost in her books without anyone to remind her to take a break once in awhile that she'd starve herself to death".

At least her parents are safe. She clings to that thought like a lifeline: whatever happened to Harry, at least her (their) parents weren't involved. They're not soulmates, so they won't be harmed or taken into some facility to never see the light of day again, the way Harry had told her these things sometimes went. They'll probably get questioned still, but considering that apart from a bi-weekly phone-call they haven't really been in contact for the last few months, Hermione is rather sure they wouldn't have anything to tell even if they wanted to.

Still, living on the streets is tough. What food Harry had packed for her ran out quickly, and Hermione is thankful for the fact that her birthday is in September, because she's not sure how she'd have handled the freezing snows of winter or the boiling heat they've had at the height of summer in addition to being on the run.

 _Food, water, and shelter_. She repeats those words like a mantra as she keeps moving forward, leaving behind London and the streets she knows. _Food, water and shelter._

Water is the easiest to get, by far, though it gets harder the further away from the cities she gets. Shelter, too, she can handle, even if she's learned to sleep with one eye open, heart quivering with fear and adrenaline at every shadow she sees.

The streets aren't kind to women on their own. She's been taught this all her life, and Hermione has no intention to become a statistic. She's managed to escape the government so far - the Soulmate Researching Department of it, anyway, or whatever they call themselves these days; she's not going to be undone by street thugs.

So far, she's managed to stay safe, though she doesn't think she's ever been that filthy in her entire life - not even when she and Harry and been caught in a storm during their last summer in France and had ended up covered in mud, their hair matted with earth and sticks by the time they had found their way back to their hotel.

Just another thing she should have guessed about this running away thing, she guesses.

Like stealing. She'd never thought she'd have to resort to stealing - would never have guessed she'd illegally acquire anything in her life that wasn't a pen she'd forgotten to give back (if that even counted as theft). And yet, her food had run out alarmingly fast, and her money would have run out even faster if she had used it to buy food all the time, so she'd had to… compromise, much as she hated it.

Even today, she keeps a record of everywhere she's taken something she shouldn't have. One day, fate willing, she'll pay all of it back.

It hasn't been all bad, of course. She's met people, kind people, out there on the streets, that she would never have met otherwise.

She's also learned that, contrary to what so many people told her during her education, none of what she's read has been forgotten. It's kind of crazy, in fact, the random things she remembers when they're about to become useful.

That's how she learned to pick locks - she'd read a few books about it not long after Harry had come to stay with them (or rather Harry had read them, borrowing them from the Library and later looking articles on the subject on the internet, and Hermione had followed in his footsteps because the idea had interested her then), and though she'd never really practiced it since she'd had to force open her secret diary lock when she had been thirteen, it seems that she still remembered enough of those researches to open almost any lock after a few fumbling tries.

She looks at her soulmark every morning, wiping away the grime and remnants of makeup there with some wet cloth. It darkens a little more every time, but it seems reluctant to actually shift into anything legible. _It's shy_ , Hermione surprises herself into thinking more than once, tracing the mark that had brought her so much trouble fondly.

She hopes that whoever is at the end of it is safe - or as safe as they can be, considering the circumstances.

She wonders if not knowing the name of her soulmate makes her safer or not - at least this way, if her pursuers catch up with her, she can't betray what she doesn't know, but Hermione rather thinks that it would be a comfort, to know the name of the person the universe thinks she destined to be with, and honestly? Hermione could use some comfort these days.

When she reaches the docks, she's unsure of what to do next. She's chasing rumors now, whispers she's heard on the streets about captains willing to offer questionable characters a place on their ship in exchange for work.

Hermione's pretty sure this would be easier if she were a man instead of a woman, if she had the muscles to carry heavy loads bulging visibly on her arms like so many men she sees, but she's not useless. She can work - year after year of carrying heavy tomes has gifted her with more strength than most people would think, but her best asset is still her mind.

Surely someone, somewhere out there, will need that, and then she'll be able to leave. To go where, she doesn't know, but she still has time to figure it out, since no ships seem to be interested in hiring her. Yet.

So in the meantime, she works as a waitress. It's not something she's done since she was eighteen and found that she hated it and would much rather spend her summers working in a library, but it's work, and it keeps her busy and able to listen in on most customers.

It takes her a while to see it, but once she does, her eyes keep getting drawn back to it.

There's a table, you see, at the far off corner of the tavern she works in. Most evenings, it's filled with the usual drunkards playing cards and hoping to win some money off their friends, but once a week, it's something else. Something different - and to Hermione, these days, different means interesting or dangerous.

Now she just needs to figure out which it is here.

So she observes that table and its players carefully, making sure to always be there on the night where it's _different_ and to be the one who serves it.

It isn't until the third week, just as she was despairing to ever find any clue as to what they were doing - though by now she's realized that it wasn't anything nefarious (or at the very least nothing _she_ would define as such) - that she finally does begin to figure it out.

There's a call sign. It had been hard to notice at first, because from one week to the next the people sitting at the table are never the same - a pink-haired woman next to a grumpy grey-haired man, sitting in front of a black guy with the best dreadlocks Hermione's ever seen are there the first week, but the second there's a scarred guy with eyes the color of amber drinking with two men who look to be about Hermione's age looking at him eagerly - but there's a call sign.

Just before they all start to order drinks or food and start playing, they all pass a card to the person sitting on their right. It's a gesture so smooth it has to have been rehearsed, and it happens so fast it is very, very easy to miss.

In fact, Hermione only catches it because she is not only looking for something of the sort, but also because she recognizes the cards.

They're shaped like business cards, with black characters embossed on thick white paper. Hermione's spent enough time in the last few weeks retracing those characters to recognize them when she sees them, and her fingers itch for her own card.

Alas, it isn't there - it's stuffed in her bag safely, because it's the last thing Harry gave her besides an opportunity to escape and she can't bear to lose or damage it, not when it had obviously been important enough that he'd delay her departure to give it to her.

But she has a lead now - a proper one. Harry had said that she'd know what to do with that card when she would need it, and she doesn't think there could come a time where she'd need it more than she does now.

As she muses on this, her name rings out in the kitchens and so Hermione steers away from that table and its curious occupants, empty glasses of beer balanced precariously on her tray.

"Coming!" she shouts back, sending one last curious glance toward the table that might contain a clue as to what she's supposed to do next.

She's kept too busy for the rest of the night to do much snooping around, but she keeps an eye out on that mysterious table anyway, straining her ears in the hope that she might hear something useful. Much as she expects, though, that doesn't happen.

She spends the next week in a state of nervous excitement, insides jittery and palms constantly sweating. She can't wait for this week to end and yet she's terrified of what will happen when it does - what if this isn't what she hopes it will be? What if the card doesn't help her and whoever will be sitting at that table decide she's not worth their time and call her hunters on her?

She doesn't even know what scares her the most: that this might not work, or that it might.

But honestly, Hermione is tired of being scared. She's tired of hiding and running like a rat, constantly sleeping with one eye open because relaxing too much might mean she won't recognize where she wakes up. If this meeting can help her with that, then she has to take this chance.

Which is how, when the day comes, Hermione switches to a lunch shift instead of the evening one she usually prefers. At seven pm that night, she puts on her cloak, grabs the bag she doesn't want to leave behind for this, and closes the door of the piece-of-shit one-room apartment she's been renting by the week. The white card Harry gave her is carefully tucked into the back pocket of her jeans, and Hermione feels ready.

When she enters the tavern, it feels different than it usually does - like maybe the atmosphere is more charged with something.

It almost feels like the world is waiting on something to happen, like it's holding its breath.

She's the first there at that table, and she sits facing the door. Even so, she somehow misses the others entering.

She recognizes only one of them, the first man. He's the one who's face is scarred. White, jagged stretches of paler skin dot his face in a painful-looking mimicry of a tiger's stripes, but his eyes are steady and kind. He sits right across from Hermione, and moments later a blonde woman Hermione's never seen joins them.

This new woman would look entirely unassuming if it weren't for her rather eccentric makeup: red eyeshadow and eyelashes extensions shaped like colorful feathers. When she sits, she smiles dreamily at Hermione, before kissing the man's cheek like they're old friends. He lets her, but he has the look of a man who simply knows it's better not to resist.

The third person to join them is another woman. She also doesn't seem like the sort of person you'd expect in these parts, and just being in the same room as her makes Hermione feel awfully inadequate, and it has her very aware that her hair is a mess - and not an artful one.

She sits right in front of the blonde woman, sending her a quick and thin smile, before nodding once at the man. Neither the women nor the man look at Hermione until they've passed their cards around, Hermione handing hers shakily to the woman on her right, and by virtue of their seating arrangement, receiving a pristine looking card from the latest arrival.

And just like that, a tenseness Hermione hadn't even realized had settled over the table melts away.

"So, are you new to this then?" the last woman asks, slipping her card back into her sleeve.

Hermione stares at her blankly. "I guess?" she ventures. "I'm afraid I have to admit that I don't know what _this_ is."

Her other neighbor laughs, a clear sound that rings brightly in the darkened atmosphere of the tavern. "You shouldn't worry about Daphne," she says. "She's always like this. I'm Luna, by the way," she adds, introducing herself before gesturing at the man, "and this is Remus."

"I'm Hermione. So, what is _this_ exactly then?"

Daphne's eyes narrow. "She's new, and she doesn't even know what she's doing" she hisses coldly, ignoring Hermione completely. "How do you know we can trust her?

Luna's eyes twinkle with mirth as she hands in Hermione's card to Remus while looking straight into Daphne's icy eyes. Hermione, who's shamefully aware that the once pristine card has now been stained with substances even Hermione doesn't know the origins of, is the only one who sees how Remus' eyes widen, lips parting almost imperceptibly as he trails his fingers over the symbols there.

"Where did you get this?" he asks, and the two other woman turn to him as well. His voice is steady and calm, and only his hands, showing white knuckles, betray that he is anything but. Hermione has the feeling that he has better like her answer, or _she_ won't like what happens next.

Hermione squares off her shoulders and leans forward, elbows resting on the table. "My brother gave it to me," she states, in a tone that leaves no room for discussion.

Remus hums quietly for a few tense moments, eyes roaming over her face. Hermione doesn't move an inch, eyes narrowing as she dares them to refuse her.

And then Remus smiles, shoulders visibly unwinding. He looks like a different man like this - a kinder one.

"You must be Hermione," he says. "We've been looking for you."


	3. Chapter 3: some answers

Sorry about last week's cliffhanger – I can promise there won't be one every week. This is mostly a filler chapter, but it was necessary to give some background to this world I think.

I hope you enjoy this!

 _Word count:_ 2444

 **Chapter 3:** **some answers**

"You must be Hermione," Remus has just said. "We've been looking for you." The words echo in Hermione's mind, becoming more ominous every time.

Her blood freezes in her veins as she jerks back. "I have no idea what you're talking about. You must be mistaken," she says, drawing on her panic to appear as offended as she can, her mind racing as she tries to figure out a way out of this mess. "If you'll excuse me," she says, getting up and mentally cursing herself for ever thinking that doing this could lead anywhere good.

She knows this place, luckily, knows this people, too. If she asks for help, they'll give it to her—they'll trust her over these strangers, she thinks. Well, she hopes. After all, it would only take a few words—the revelation that she's one of those elusive soulmates people that the general population seems to half fear, half revere, for example—and they'd probably hand her right over.

"Sit down," Daphne hisses, right as Luna asks, "Where are you going?" She sounds so saddened and confused by the idea of Hermione leaving that Hermione freezes, halfway up in her seat.

Remus blinks, taking in the scene before him, and chuckles a little, self-deprecating. "Sorry about this, I realize now how that must have sounded," he says, handing Hermione back her card. "I should have said that we've been waiting for you to make contact with us."

"Hoping, he means," Daphne interrupts, picking at her nails disinterestedly. "We've been hoping you'd find us."

"Yes, Daphne's right," Remus sighs. "I'm a friend of your brother—he warned us the moment he knew your mark had come in, said he'd try to help you. When we didn't hear back from him, we assumed the worse, but we've still kept on the lookout for either him or you, or ideally, both."

Hermione sits back down, stunned. "You know _Harry_?"

Remus smiles fondly. "I do, yes. I was the one who gave him this card." He points at the card Hermione still hasn't put away. "See those symbols?"

Hermione nods numbly. "I've been wondering what they were, yes," she says.

"That's because they're in code," he replies smugly. "Each card has a specific set of symbols that we know how to read, and it tells us who the card belongs to—it also helps identify pretenders," he adds, sending Daphne a look Hermione can't quite decipher.

"This code's my creation," Luna interrupts brightly. "I made the symbols myself. Nice, aren't they?"

Again, Hermione can only nod. Thankfully, she's saved from having to talk through the haze that has settled over her mind by a redhead waitress Hermione has only seen around a couple times.

The woman—almost a girl still—looks surprised to see Hermione there and she frowns, something like concern flashing in her eyes.

"Hermione? Is that you?" she asks. "Are you alright? I thought you wanted to take your evening off today—you can't tell me coming to this sorry joint is your idea of a night off, can you?"

Hermione forces a laugh, struggling to remember the name of the girl. Was it a J-something name? Jenny, maybe? No, not Jenny—Ginny. "I'm perfectly fine, Ginny," Hermione replies. "My new… _friends_ wanted to see where I work, I guess, and I know this place nice enough for this kind of meeting."

Around the table, Luna keeps smiling sunnily at everyone as Daphne seems content to keep a watchful eye out on their surroundings. She's tenser than she was before, and interesting contrast to Remus, who seems perfectly at ease as he smiles at Ginny.

It is the kind of smile a teacher makes, or a librarian maybe—the kind of authority figures Hermione grew up trusting instinctively.

Ginny still eyes their little group dubiously, but what she sees seems to reassure her—even if she can't honestly believe that Hermione is friends with these people—because she nods to herself and takes out her notepad. "So, what can I get you tonight?"

They order an assortment of cheese and cold meat to go with their drinks. Hermione doesn't really have a say in what they're eating, though the choice is fine by her, and she orders a tomato juice because it's her favorite as well as the only thing she remembers is on the menu at the top of her head. And she doesn't think now is the time for alcohol.

Remus gets a beer and Luna somehow manages to weasel a non-alcoholic fruit cocktail that is _not_ on the menu out of their waitress, while Daphne asks for a gin and tonic. Clearly, not all of her companions agree with Hermione's decision to stay sober for this conversation.

It isn't until Ginny's gone that Hermione figures out her next question.

"How do you know Harry anyway?"

Remus' fingers, which has been resting flat on the table, tighten into a fist. "I knew his parents," he says, and from the pain in his voice and the shadows in his eyes Hermione knows she's not getting anything more out of him.

Not today, anyway.

She desperately wants to ask more though, but she hasn't missed the way Remus said that he hadn't heard from Harry since he helped Hermione escape getting caught, and that's more important to her than Remus' relationship to people that are long dead.

"What…" She pauses, swallowing hard. "What do you think happened to him?"

Her three companions share a dark look. "We don't know," Remus admits.

"But we haven't found him yet," Luna adds, smiling encouragingly. "That could be a good thing."

"Potter is good at hiding things," Daphne concurs semi-reluctantly.

"A little too good," Hermione mumbles quietly—to think that her brother has apparently lead some kind of double life all these years without telling her, when she thought she knew everything there was to know about him? Well, it stings.

She can't help but wonder what makes this—whatever _this_ is—so much more important than every other secret Harry's told her. After all, he told her about what happened to his parents, or what he knew of it, and about what the government truly did to people with soulmates.

Harry hadn't even told her parents that. Not that Hermione can blame him—she's fairly sure her parents would never have believed him. The official story was that James and Lily Potter had been killed in a tragic accident, and that witnessing that accident had had Harry traumatized enough that he had needed to be institutionalized for several months before he ended up at the Grangers.

Hermione had never quite been able to parse out why her parents had been chosen to adopt him, but they had been interested in adopting a child for years—ever since it had been revealed that they couldn't have another child biologically without risking Hermione's mother's life.

Oh, Hermione knows her parents had believed that the place Harry had been in—that supposed institution—hadn't been as safe for him as it had been supposed to; but there was a big difference between believing Harry's doctors had abused their positions, which had resulted in the boy needing to be placed elsewhere—preferably with people who knew some medicine as well— and believing that everything was some kind of conspiracy made by the government to hide their own activities on soulmates.

For a while, Hermione hadn't been sure what to believe either, but she had chosen to believe Harry. His pain was real to him, and to her, and it would have been hard to fake, no matter what adults might have thought.

Considering what happened to her two months ago, Hermione's really glad to have made that choice. She wouldn't be here now if she hadn't believed Harry's story all those years ago—Hermione has a feeling Harry would have run away a long time ago if not for her, inoperable chip in his neck or not.

Ginny comes back with their drinks and food, and the sharp sound the glass makes as it hits the table drags her out of her thoughts in time to hear Remus' next sentence.

"He kept secrets to keep you safe, mostly," he says apologetically.

"Well, maybe I didn't want to be 'kept safe'," Hermione spits, wrapping her fingers around her glass with a strong grip. She can feel the cold sink into her skin, her hands growing a little stiff. If she concentrates, she can even imagine that it sinks all the way to her racing heart and mind and slows them down a little bit.

Daphne snorts. "Trust me, you're going to wish you could have been 'kept safe' by the time we're done eating."

For the first time, Luna's smile isn't cheerful. In fact, she hides a grimace as she sucks on the yellow straw stuck in her cocktail. Hermione has to hide a shiver.

Still, she forges on. "And what would I need to be 'kept safe' from, exactly?" she asks, tone as dry as she can make it. "And for that matter, none of you have explained who you are and what you do yet."

Daphne picks at a piece of a cheese Hermione doesn't recognize. "If you haven't realized you're in danger by now, then you clearly aren't half as clever as we were told you were," she snorts.

Before Hermione can get offended, Remus snaps, "Daphne!"

"Sorry," Daphne replies, rolling her eyes a little. She doesn't sound very sorry to Hermione, but Hermione will take what she can get. "I'm right, though," Daphne adds.

"Right or not, this is neither the time nor the place," Remus retorts.

Hermione clears her throat pointedly. "Also—and sorry to interrupt—I am perfectly aware that I am in danger, thank you very much. They came to my house and Harry told me to run, and the last thing I heard from there were gunshots, for God's sake!" she almost shouts the last part, chest heaving as she forces herself to keep her voice down—she can't imagine this is the kind of conversation she wants overheard.

"But I also know that I've spent the last two months living on my own," she continues, a bit calmer, "and I was doing fine without your help, thank you very much. So clearly, I didn't need this so-called protection nearly as much as Harry, or you people, whoever you are, believed I did," Hermione finishes, a little breathless from her rant.

To her surprise, Luna's smile has returned during her speech, and Daphne is now smirking into her drink.

"You know what? I think I like you, Hermione," Daphne says, eyeing Hermione with a little less cold contempt now.

"Thank you?" Hermione replies, not really sure how to take that.

"You should be proud," Luna whispers into her ear playfully. "Daphne doesn't like a lot of people."

"Yeah, no kidding," Hermione whispers back, hiding a snort into a sip of her steadily emptying glass of tomato juice.

Setting her drink back down, Hermione turns her focus back on Remus—she gets the feeling he's the one who knows the most here, and more importantly, the one most likely to finally give her some answers.

"So, what do you people do?" she asks, and almost immediately all earlier levity leaves the air.

Daphne casts back her eyes around the room. After a few seconds, she exchanges a meaningful look with Luna and sends a curt nod at Remus, who sighs.

"Alright," he says. "I guess you could that we're a group interesting in making sure certain _parties_ , who might be endangered by some _other parties'_ actions, are kept hidden and able to hide."

"That's awfully vague," Hermione points out, opting to try out the cheese herself as she thinks about what Remus has just said. It's good.

"Remus like to be vague," Daphne replies. "He thinks it gives him a certain… _charm_."

"You've been spending too much time with Luna," Remus retorts, sighing, but he doesn't deny it.

This time, Luna is the one who rolls her eyes. In a fluid move, she leans against Hermione, her blond hair tickling against Hermione's bare neck. "Basically?" she starts, voice practically overflowing with mischief, "We're the Resistance."

Remus looks like he wants to bang his head against the table—or possibly stab himself with his fork—but Hermione can't help the bark of laughter that escapes her. It feels good to laugh, after so long. She'd almost forgotten how that felt.

"The 'Resistance', uh?" she repeats.

"Not here," Daphne immediately hisses.

Remus nods, and adds, "Let's eat first—we'll take you somewhere safe after that, somewhere we can really talk."

"And why should I go with you, exactly?" Hermione asks, raising an eyebrow questioningly.

Remus looks surprised at the question—the two girls do not.

"You'll come because we can answer your questions, obviously," Luna states, blinking owlishly. She sucks on her straw again, hollowing her cheeks. Her glass is empty now, and the loud noise the suction makes startles Hermione so badly she jumps a little.

"Right…" Hermione drawls, backing away a little.

"And," Remus interjects, voice louder than before, "you have my word we mean you no harm."

"I don't know you," Hermione retorts, even though the temptation to just give in and agree to follow these people is strong. But this is her life, hanging in the balance—she can't be too careful with that. "How do I know I can trust you?"

"You don't," Daphne admits before Remus can reply. "But you trust your brother, and he clearly meant for you to run into us at some point. Don't you want to at least find out why that is?"

Hermione thinks back on her last moments with Harry. In the last couple of months, she's remembered them so many times they're basically engraved in her mind by now—she thinks that's how they've remained so clear in her mind, despite her running half on panic, half on adrenaline that night.

Harry had said she'd knew what to do with the cards when the time came. He'd trusted her to know what to do with it—and he had always told her to follow her instincts, to stop overthinking everything.

Well, it looks it that time has indeed come.

"Alright," she says, looking straight into Daphne's eyes. "I'll go with you, and you'll answer my other questions. Do we have a deal?" She moves her head, first looking straight into Luna's eyes and finally into Remus'.

"We do," Remus replies.

"Good," Hermione nods. "Let's eat, then."


	4. Chapter 4: a vision in the darkness

Sorry for the delay this week, I've been busy. Next chapter should be back to my Tuesday-Wednesday timeline.

Hope you like this chapter! Things are about to start moving, get ready.

 _Word count:_ 2278

.

 **Chapter 4:** **a vision in the darkness**

After that initial discussion, dinner is a quiet affair. Under Hermione's mostly absent gaze, Remus, Luna and Daphne conduct whatever business they had planned on conducting before Hermione had interrupted their evening—something that she _almost_ feels sorry for, but doesn't because of the scare they gave her earlier.

Hermione still has many questions, since what answers she got didn't exactly tell her everything she'd wanted to know. For example, she still doesn't know what it is, exactly, that this 'Resistance' is doing—she's never heard of them, after all, and history has always proven that secret societies were never all that secret.

Still, at least they've reassured her that she can probably somewhat trust these people, if only because they seem to personally know Harry, and Harry worked with them—she knows her brother; he wouldn't work with bad people.

She's so absorbed in trying to follow the conversation before her—a report of some kind, it seems, from Daphne, who appears to know an awful lot about the e Soulmate Researching Department's (or SRD) efforts to find her—that she doesn't notice Ginny coming back with a full pitcher of water.

"Your water, sir," she tells Remus, even though his glass is still about half full. Remus nods seriously, and nods at Ginny to put the pitcher down on the table. Hermione can't remember hearing him order water, but she supposes that she could have easily missed him gesturing at the waitress.

"Oh, thank you," Hermione smiles, clearing a small space on the table so the redhead can put it down and shaking her earlier thoughts away. It hardly matters why Remus ordered water, after all, and honestly, Hermione is rather glad for it— _she_ finished her drink a while back, and she's feeling quite parched now.

"You're welcome," Ginny smiles back, before nodding politely at the other occupants of the table and leaving.

Hermione pours herself a glass almost immediately and downs half of it one gulp, or so it seems.

"Thirsty much?" Daphne smirks.

"So, what if I am?" Hermione replies, shrugging. "It's just water, it's not like I'm downing shot of tequila after shot of tequila."

"True," Daphne concedes. "Then, please, go ahead," she says, gesturing at the pitcher.

Hermione huffs in amusement, but she does refill her glass.

She's halfway through her third—who'd have thought she could get this thirsty—when Remus clears his throat and calls Ginny over for the bill.

"Ready to go?" Luna asks, looking at Hermione with eyes that are almost too wide to be real.

"Ready to get my answers, yes," Hermione retorts, standing up and grabbing her coat.

Remus smiles at her sympathetically, but nods. "And you will get them. But first, I assume you live not far from this place?"

"It won't hold us all, if that's what you're asking," Hermione states, taken aback. She frowns. "It's much too small for that."

Remus simply huffs a short laugh. "No, that's not what I meant—just that you should leave first, grab what you need, and meet us back here. We won't all be leaving at the same time, so you'll get about twenty minutes to meet us back here."

"I'll be driving," Luna pipes up enthusiastically, shiny silver keys dangling from her index fingers, and Hermione bites back a laugh at how that makes Daphne and Remus groan.

"See you soon, then," Hermione says.

Twenty minutes is plenty of time to get to her place and back, but she still finds herself running, heart hammering in her chest. She has a feeling they wouldn't wait for her long if she didn't show on time, and the idea of this one chance at getting answers slipping through her fingers is terrifying.

She can hear her heart pound in her ears as she slips the key into the lock, and her hands are shaking with adrenaline so much that it seems to take her forever to actually open her door. It's a matter of seconds to grab what little cash she's collected and hidden through the small apartment (if it can even be called that), and she pens a letter quickly, stating to her landlord that if she's not back in time to pay him next week, he can sell whatever she's left behind.

It's not like those things are hers anyway—most of them she found or salvaged, and while it would suck to lose them, they don't really hold any sentimental value to her. Everything that does, she already carries with her in case she has to run.

Or, as it turns out, in case she has to join some so-called 'Rebellion'.

Locking the door behind her turns out to be just as difficult as opening it had been—a mix of the fatigue of the last few months finally catching up to her now that she actually has an end in sight, she's sure, and of the excitement-tinged fear that curses through her veins at the idea of following strangers to god knows where.

She leans against the door for an instant, hit by the sudden feeling that she will never see this place again. She feels almost dizzy for it—this place might have been crap, but she had chosen it, and it had been safe. She'll miss it.

She jogs back up to the bar—she doesn't have a watch, so she isn't sure how long she took, but by her count she has a couple of minutes to spare.

She doesn't have to wait long before a black van pulls her to her. It looks worn down, like it has seen better days—it looks like it belongs in this place, and that thought makes Hermione smile.

The side door slides open and Remus offers her a hand. "Get in," he says.

"Couldn't you get any vehicle even more cliché?" Hermione snorts as she gets in, the door sliding shut behind her—the sound of it so final it seems to echo down to her bones.

"I'm sure we could have, if we had wanted to do," Remus replies, amused smile playing on his lips. He frowns when Hermione sways a little, and he scoots over, hands hovering above her arms nervously. "Are you alright? Maybe you should sit down."

Hermione blinks, surprised to find her vision surprisingly blurry, but sitting does help. "It's nothing," she replies, waving the concern away with a tight smile. "I pro'a'ly just got a li'le d'zzy f'r a mo'ent, I'll 'e 'i'e." She yawns and frowns. "I just got a little dizzy, I'll be fine," she tries to repeat, but her speech is just as confused as it was seconds before.

Her tongue sits heavy in her mouth, and opening her mouth again asks for more energy than she has.

 _This isn't normal_ , her mind scream, but Hermione is already too far gone for the sharp burst of panic to do anything but make her heart beat faster. "I think I've been drugged," she tries to say, because this feels like what she imagines being drugged feels like. She's not sure what comes out, since her speech sounds so slurred to her ears, so she tries to repeat herself.

Daphne's voice, when it pierces through the haze that now surrounds Hermione's mind, seems to come from very far away.

"Is she alright?" she asks, groaning as she contorts from her place on the passenger seat to peer at the back seats.

"She should be," Remus hums. "Is it supposed to act this fast? I thought we'd have more time… She nearly collapsed on the street."

"Well, she did drink a lot," Daphne says, but she does sound a little concerned. "Hey, Luna, is this normal?"

"She'll be fine," Luna's voice confirms. To Hermione, it sounds almost like a lullaby—added to the slight rocking of the van as Luna drives and the way Remus lowers her slowly onto the seat so she's half lying down, it becomes impossible for Hermione to keep her hold onto reality.

The darkness welcomes her with open arms, and Hermione sinks into it gladly.

 **.x.**

Awareness comes to Hermione in waves, in faraway sounds that caress her ears like a summer breeze, there an instant and lulling her back under the next.

" _Here, Daphne, you should take over now."_

" _What, tired already, Lovegood?"_

" _No, but I think Remus would appreciate some more room to spread his legs, and I'm the shortest one here—I can stay in the back with Hermione."_

 _A huff. "Fine, whatever, just pull over and we'll switch."_

…

 _A hand running slowly through her hair, fingers untangling painful knots._

" _Shh, sleep, you're going to be just fine. We're almost there, you know—you're going to love it there, you'll see."_

The gesture is so soothing Hermione eases back into it, throat vibrating a little.

" _Is she_ _waking_ _up?"_

 _A hum. "No, I don't think so."_

No, Hermione isn't waking up, but there is something there—a door, almost, standing just at the edge of the field of darkness Hermione is in. It hovers there, too, shimmering slightly, at the corner of what would be her eyes if she was awake, and when Hermione tries to reach for it, it seems to shift away, taunting her.

She reaches for it again, and again, and again, until it feels like she hits something.

It rings in her head, something sharp like glass shattering into a thousand pieces, and Hermione falls.

 **.x.**

Hermione opens her eyes in a room she doesn't recognize. The concrete walls around her are a dirty grey, and the white ceiling seems to press down on her.

Her body feels tired and slow when she tries to move it, her limbs following her thoughts with some delay or not at all. It is an odd, uneasy feeling, where she feels like she was submerged in a vat of molasses, struggling to stay afloat.

The cotton sheets are rough on her skin as she pushes them away, and the tile floor is so cold that her toes curl on themselves, a shiver passing through her.

Overhead, a rough, angry voice shouts something Hermione doesn't understand, and her body flinches back before she knows what's happening.

A shrill alarm starts ringing after that, and Hermione's blood freezes in her veins. _Run_ , her brain seems to be telling her, but no matter how hard Hermione tries to start moving, her body doesn't obey her. It walks slowly, steadily, toward a sort of bathroom corner Hermione hadn't really noticed before.

Under the white ceiling lights, the sink and shower curtains look very dreary; like the setting of the horror movies her father loves to watch and that Harry and Hermione peeked in on from the stairs.

She doesn't look in the mirror when she gets to the sink. Instead, she rests her hands on both side of the cold, white ceramic, eyes burning with unshed tears as she heaves a long sigh, before reaching for her toothbrush.

Hermione wants to recoil—wants to scream—when catches sight of her arms, so pale and thin she can see the blue veins snaking up, the skin inside her elbows marred purple from painful needle marks.

 _Something's wrong. Something's wrong._ Those words echo in her head, but Hermione doesn't understand until she looks up into the mirror and doesn't recognize the face looking back at her, with its pale skin, silvery-blonde hair hanging limply around her face and eyes so blue Hermione could get lost in them.

In other circumstances, Hermione is sure that this woman would be gorgeous; but here, she looks half-dead already, and Hermione's heart ache at the thought.

Almost as if she hears her thoughts, the woman looks down at her right wrist, left fingers coming to rub at a scarred patch of skin there—and suddenly, Hermione knows exactly who the face in the mirror belongs to.

This is her soulmate, whoever she is—wherever, she is. Somehow, Hermione just saw where her soulmate was, and it isn't a happy place.

In fact, Hermione would bet anything that the SRD have her already. These few moments Hermione just witnessed certainly seem to fit with the stories Harry told her in the dead of night.

The woman Hermione still doesn't know the name of—but now desperately wants to—looks so down that Hermione can't resist the urge to try to send her some comfort, to tell her 'I'm here, you're not alone' and hope that it is enough to help her, even for a single second.

Hermione doesn't expect the reaction she gets—in the mirror, the woman's eyes widen in horror and her toothbrush slips through her now limp fingers, a silent _'no'_ falling from her lips.

In the blink of an eye, Hermione is ejected from her place behind that woman's eyes, flung back toward the empty, warm darkness she had forgotten even existed.

This time, when she blearily blinks herself awake, she's in her own body, even if she doesn't really know where she is.

The sunlight blinds her as it hits her eyes, the metallic sound of the side door sliding open echoing inside her head almost painfully, but the fresh air that rushes in makes her shiver and immediately wakes her up more effectively than anything else could ever have.

"Where are we?" Hermione asks, choosing to tackle the 'who drugged me' issue once that was settled.

In the early sunlight, Daphne's hair shines like a halo around her head, making her look like some holy messenger.

"Welcome," she says, grinning widely, "to Hogwarts."


	5. Chapter 5: Hogwarts (part one)

This chapter was running a bit long, so I had to split it in two. As a result, this is a bit of a filler chapter, because most of what I wanted to make happen in this chapter will actually happen in the next one…

See you next week, and I hope you enjoy this!

 _Word count:_ 2785

 **Chapter 5:** **Hogwarts (part one)**

Hermione's first thought is that _Hogwarts_ is an entirely ridiculous name for a Scottish castle that looks abandoned.

"Hogwarts?" she chokes, trying not to laugh.

Daphne huffs a laugh, eyes crinkling up in amusement, and Hermione realizes that she probably isn't the first one to note on the absurdity of that name.

"We didn't choose it," she sighs. "But you have to admit, it is a good disguise. No one who hears that name would expect it to refer to some secret castle, would they?"

Hermione finds herself smiling back before she can stop it, still a little groggy. It isn't fair, how easy it is to interact with Daphne; not when the other woman was probably one of those who drugged her—because that's what to have happened, for none of them to have panicked when she collapsed like she did.

And she remembers things, too, echoes of voices that spoke as she slumbered, and those small bits of dialogue she's heard all seem to confirm her theory.

Thinking back on those moments bring back something else that she hadn't even realized she had forgotten—the terribly disconcerting feeling of being in a body not her own, the fear as instructions she can't remember were shouted at her, and that final instant, filled by an awful kind of desperation Hermione had never felt before and hopes she never will again.

Some of that must have shown on her face—or who knows, maybe Hermione paled (god knows she certainly feels horrified enough by these odds memories)—because Daphne leans in in concern, her head now blocking out the sun.

"Are you alright?"

Hermione snorts as she pushes herself out of the van. It feels insanely good to stretch out her legs—how long were they in that thing anyway?—and she allows herself to indulge in that for a few moments.

"How do you think I am?" she finally replies, crossing her arms. "I don't know where I am, I still don't know who you people are or what you do, and _oh, yes_ , let's not forget the fact that I'm pretty sure I was drugged last night, and by one of you."

Luna's blonde head, when it pops out of the driver window, scares her half to death. "Of course, you were drugged," she says, smiling brightly, like there is nothing wrong with the idea of drugging people.

Hermione narrows her eyes, forcing her fists to stay unclenched. "Was it you?" she hisses through her teeth, before spinning on her heels and looking back into Daphne's strangely amused eyes. "Or you? Or maybe it was Remus," she finishes, and yes, it had to have been him—he was clearly the 'leader' of this little band, it'd make sense for him to have been the one.

Not that it exonerates either girl; not when they could have easily slipped Hermione something in her drink when she hadn't been looking, or played distraction so that Remus could.

Or…

"Of course not," Luna replies, and she almost sounds offended. "We would never have been able to do it—not with you staring at us like a hawk throughout dinner."

"Then who?" Hermione asks, throat tightening as she tastes the bitter beginnings of panic. She had been prepared to accept (if not approve) of her new companions having drugged her, but that's only because she can guess at their need for secrecy.

But if it wasn't them, then it means it was someone else; another player that Hermione didn't see come into play.

Daphne snorts, and Hermione turns back to her just in time to catch the end of an eyeroll. "Can't you guess?" Daphne asks, a smirk that's half-smug, half-teasing on her lips.

Mutely, Hermione shakes her head, but just as Daphne opens her mouth to answer, it hits her. "You don't mean… Ginny?" she gapes.

"Got it in one," Daphne replies. She seems lighter here, less guarded, perhaps, than she had been last night, and it makes her look younger. Kinder, too, though this teasing Hermione could do without

"And she works for you?" Hermione asks, not daring to believe her ears.

Daphne nods, but it's Luna who answers, rolling down her window completely and climbing out of it—somehow, even though Hermione has only known the girl for less than a day, it seems like a very _her_ thing to do.

"Ginny works _with_ us," she says, coming to stand next to Daphne, a contrast of manic energy next to Daphne's steady calm. "Sometimes—mostly she carries messages, makes sure our meeting places are safe, that kind of thing."

"And sometimes, she drugs people, too," Hermione deadpans, rolling her eyes.

"She didn't drug you, though—she drugged the water. You didn't have to drink it."

"And what would have happened if I hadn't?" Hermione asks with morbid curiosity, choosing to disregard the semantics for now.

Luna and Daphne exchange a meaningful smile, and Luna shrugs. "Well, _then_ we would have had to drug you." She grins wildly, and Hermione shivers a little.

Trying to distract herself from Luna's creepy smile, she looks around at her surroundings. Now that she's less groggily trying to pull herself awake, she can truly see how impressive it looks.

It doesn't appear to be half as abandoned as her earlier glances had led her to believe either. Sure, the towers—which Hermione is sure probably used to stand very tall in the landscape—are either half collapsed or in a similar state of disrepair, but the rest of the castle, though marked by the passage of time, seems sound.

Bathed in the early sunlight, it looks oddly magical.

"So, where are we anyway? Besides 'Hogwarts'," she adds, anticipating the obvious answer.

But before either Daphne or Luna can answer, a third voice interrupts, its deeper tone already somewhat familiar.

"We're in Scotland," Remus states. With a quick nod on his part, Daphne and Luna drift away from them with barely a complaint—though Daphne does frown her eyebrows at him. Their low chatter is almost immediately incomprehensible, but Hermione can't be sure if that's because she doesn't understand what they're talking about or if it's because they're already too far away.

It could also, obviously, be a mixture of both.

With a small sigh, Hermione turns back to Remus, who is looking at her with a mysterious half-smile.

"I don't suppose you'll tell me _where_ in Scotland we are, won't you?" Hermione asks in a sigh.

Remus' smile widens, turning somewhat apologetic. "You suppose right," he shrugs. "It's not that we don't trust you, it's just that…" he trails off, and Hermione fills in the blanks.

"You don't know me," she nods. "It's fine, you know. I don't really trust you either."

Remus looks surprised by that confession. "Why not?" he asks, frowning lightly. Hermione wishes he wouldn't—it makes him look older, and sadder somehow. Like this, Hermione doesn't want to be mad at him.

"Well, for one, I don't trust you either. And for two, there's also the fact that you basically _kidnapped_ me," she hisses.

In his defense, Remus does winces at that. "It's standard procedure when we bring new people to Hogwarts," he explains. "We can never be too careful, you see."

Hermione lets out a noncommittal hum. "You know, if you'd told me that, I probably would have understood and accepted it. But you drugged me _without my knowledge_ , and that's not something I can or will forgive easily."

Remus sighs tiredly. "Maybe you're right. We should have warned you, and for that, I apologize. But hey?" he quips, smiling with uneasy humor. "At least this way, you didn't have to suffer through the trip, right?"

It's not 'I'm sorry', but Hermione will take it, even if that joke was in poor taste. She nods once, firmly.

"Anyway, is this when I finally get my answers?" she asks.

She thinks she could forgive quite a lot, for those answers.

Remus' smile, this time, feels more natural. "Ah, yes, of course," he replies. "Come with me, I'll give you a little tour, and then we'll go see Albus. Though," he frowns, halting in his steps, "I was wondering… Are you alright? No after-effects? Dizziness, headache, nausea, maybe?" He sounds almost ashamed to ask—as he should be—but his hazel eyes bear into Hermione's with a serene kind of intensity.

Now that he mentions it, Hermione realizes that she does have a headache. It isn't strong—she's had worse migraines from lack of sleep—but it is persistent. It almost feels like something—or someone—is trying to knock on her brain; or rather, like she was hurt once, and now the echo of that pain persists, the phantom limb of something that was never a limb at all.

"Nothing I can't handle," she replies, lips quirking up into a half-smile. "Who's Albus?" she deflects, burning with curiosity.

"If you're sure," Remus concedes doubtfully.

They start walking, slowly following the paths Daphne and Luna had started on moments earlier.

"Albus is… I guess you could say he's something like our leader." He says it with the kind of quiet awe people get when they talk about their heroes, and it only makes Hermione more curious—what is this _Albus_ like, to inspire such admiring respect?

Hermione wants to know.

"He's the one who built this place," Remus continues, chuckling softly when Hermione sends him a shocked look. "Not _built-_ built," he corrects, eyes twinkling with humor, "but he's the one who made sure people could live here, if they needed to. Like a refuge, if you will, for people with nowhere else to go."

Understanding hits Hermione like a wave, making her shiver. "People like me, you mean," she says, rubbing at her wrist absently. "People who have soulmates, and who are being hunted by the SRD."

Remus nods, solemn.

"Do you…?" For once, Hermione finds that her words fail her, but even so, she has to know. Has to ask, because this could truly mean that she's not as alone as she thought she was, that she's not the only one to be marked in this way.

"I did, yes. A long time ago." Remus' voice, full of pain, clearly shows that he won't be pushed any further on that matter, and Hermione regretfully forces herself to swallow back the hundreds of questions that have just popped up in her mind.

She knows she's made the right choice when Remus' shoulders unwind—she hasn't even noticed he had tensed—and the shadows lift from his eyes, even if not by much.

"But back to this place," Remus says, a change of subject Hermione readily accepts.

She's even glad for it—the way Remus' fingers keep twitching toward his wrist (no doubt trying to reach for a mark similar to the one Hermione wears) is making her slightly uneasy, and anything that can take her mind off the horrifyingly dead way Remus had said 'I did' is more than welcome.

"It's not just a safe place that Albus built. In fact, I guess you could say that he made this place into our secret base," he says, in the amused-yet-exasperated tone of a man who doesn't quite agree with the terminology but who's heard it enough that it still stuck with him.

All of this makes him look more human than the mysterious image he tries to project, and like earlier with Daphne, Hermione finds it incredibly frustrating, how hard he's making it for her to stay angry at him.

"Let me guess, he's the one who picked the name," Hermione comments dryly, willing to table their little interlude on soulmates. For now.

(Besides, Remus essentially just said that this was a refuge for people who had soulmates—Hermione's willing to bet that he's not the only person she'll meet here who has one, and who knows? Maybe the next one will be more willing to share their experience with her.)

Remus looks startled by her question, almost missing a step. "How did you know?"

"I didn't," Hermione shrugs, playing with the hem of her shirt and occupying her eyes with staring at the highest point of the broken tower they're getting closer to. "But I can't imagine this place was actually called that before you lot settled in here, and you just said that he was the one to make this place what it is today. It makes sense that he'd have renamed it, too, don't you think?" She turns her head, staring straight into Remus' eyes, daring him to tell her that she's wrong.

Remus snorts. "Harry wasn't lying when he said you were the smartest person he knew," he whistles.

Hermione feels her cheeks heat up. "He really said that?"

"Yeah," Remus replies, lips twisting in a fond smile. "He did."

Hermione finds herself returning his smile, even if her stomach squirms a little. "I still can't believe he wouldn't tell me about any of this."

"He couldn't," Remus tells her sympathetically. "No, look, Hermione," he hastens to say, resting a calming hand on her arm when she opens her mouth to protest, "he didn't want to lie to you, that's not—he was keeping you safe, and _yes_ , I know you don't think you needed it, but think about it from _his_ point of view."

Remus' eyes soften, edged with a desperate sadness Hermione remembers from her brother's eyes. "You and your parents are the only family he has left," Remus explains. "After what happened with James and Lily… You know he wouldn't handle it well if something— _anything_ —were to happen to you."

Most of Hermione's righteous anger melts away at that. It's nothing she hasn't heard already—no justification she hadn't thought of already—but somehow, it means more coming from this man who says he knew her brother, too.

"Yeah," she sighs, dragging her feet a little on the packed earth of the path they're walking on. A few stones roll free, and Hermione smiles. It reminds her of hiking trips she used to take with her parents, back when she was still a teenager. Those had always been fun.

"But still," she continues, squaring her shoulders in determination. "He _knew_ — _knows_ me. He should have realized that there was no fight he could take part in that I wouldn't want to join as well."

Remus looks at her knowingly, patting her arm once before retreating. "Oh, he knew. Like I said, he wanted you safe, and that's why he didn't say anything."

"And how did that work out for him again?" Hermione retorts snidely, regretting her burst of anger instantly.

"Well, you're alive, aren't you?" Remus replies steadily, raising an eyebrow at her pointedly. "So, I'd say it worked out pretty well."

Neither of them voice the fact that Harry might not be—probably isn't, even—but that fact hangs heavily between them like a dark curse.

They stop, suddenly, and Hermione realizes with no small amount of surprise that they've reached a tall wooden door that she hadn't been able to see it from the van. It is old, just like the rest of the castle, and in the same odd state of not quite disrepair.

It also looks like something straight out of a medieval book, and it makes Hermione's lips quirk up involuntarily, as her mind conjures pictures of suits of armors lining the walls inside and of gargoyles perched high on stone ledges, looking down on passersby with cruel, ugly faces.

Remus steps around her gently, allowing her to collect herself. He swipes his right hand against the wall beside the door, and the stone shifts upward, revealing a keypad lock.

And really, Hermione shouldn't be surprised—just because this place looks old doesn't mean that it can't also be modern. Besides, that wooden door looks way too heavy for any single man (or woman) to push. The two of them wouldn't manage it either—it makes sense, then, for there to be some trick to it.

"Ready?" Remus asks, lips twisted in a slightly teasing smirk. His fingers hover over the panel, and Hermione swallows heavily.

"Not really," she confesses, letting out a dry chuckle. "But I guess I don't really get the luxury of waiting to be either."

"No," Remus says in a whisper, looking almost sad, "I guess you don't."

His fingers fly over the keypad too quickly for Hermione to see the code, and a handful of seconds later, she hears a soft click, before the door in front of her starts to swing inward slowly, almost reluctantly.

And inhaling deeply, Hermione steps inside Hogwarts.


	6. Chapter 6: Hogwarts (part two)

Thanks to everyone who reads this and takes the time to review/put this story in your favorites/alerts, it means a lot to me.

 _Word count:_ 3739

 **Chapter 6: Hogwarts (part two)**

There are no suits of armor lining the walls. Hermione tries very hard not to be disappointed by that.

In the fact, the whole interior of the castle is surprisingly modern. Sure, the stone walls are obviously old, as are the stained-glass windows that litter spots of colored sunlight on the ground, but the corridors are too well-lit for there not to be artificial lighting, and as such, electricity.

It is breathtaking all the same, and Hermione's eyes are open wide as she tries to take in everything.

"Where are we going?" Hermione asks, reluctantly dragging her eyes away from a half-faded painting she believes depicts the story of Merlin and Morgana—two famous soulmates whose story had ended badly, a sign, according to all the literature on soulmates' Hermione ever found available, that soulmates couldn't be trusted.

"Your room," Remus replies, snapping Hermione out of her thoughts.

There's something different about this painting. It's not like the usual representations she's seen, and it's not until she spots Remus tugging at his sleeve absent-mindedly that she realizes why: while there is script on Merlin's exposed wrist (too faded to decipher, unfortunately), both of Morgana's wrists, visible since the sleeves of her green dress pool down to her shoulders as she raises her arms to the stormy sky, are entirely bare.

"Ah," Remus states with a kind of rueful laugh when he catches Hermione's eyes being drawn back to the painting. "I see. A fascinating picture, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Hermione sighs. She thinks about not saying anything, but really, what is she risking by asking? "I thought Merlin and Morgana were supposed to be soulmates?"

"You've read the mandated soulmates pamphlets, then," Remus states, arching an eyebrow at her. Somehow, it makes her cheeks flush in shame; because until now she'd never questioned anything the government had written about soulmates, even when she knows their treatment of them is unfair.

"And the storybooks," Hermione snorts, stepping closer until she's standing right in front of the painting, her raised fingers hovering inches above the crackled paint. She doesn't dare touch it for fear of ruining it, but she yearns to. It would feel more real, she thinks, if she could touch it.

"The thing you have to realize, Hermione," Remus says, in a soft lilting voice that reminds her of her History teacher, "is that those books all had to be, at one point, approved by someone from the SRD. Of course, they're not going to show soulmates in any kind of positive light. This," he explains, pointing at the painting, "dates from, oh, the mid-fifteenth century?"

He shrugs before continuing, voice full of passion. "There was some kind of purge, in the last century or so, where every piece of evidence relating to a version of history that contradicted with the message the SRD wants to send was destroyed. Or at least, everything they could find," Remus finishes smugly, fingers caressing the gilded frame wistfully.

"So, what's the real story, then?" Hermione asks, heart beating impatiently in her chest when Remus appears lost in his thoughts.

"Well, I don't know about _real_ ," Remus snorts, drawing back his hand like he's been burned—like Hermione's voice snapped him out of a pleasant fantasy. "But the version shown in this painting tells us that, unlike what we can read in storybooks today, Merlin and Morgana weren't soulmates. Now, maybe they were still lovers at one point, or maybe they weren't, but in this version of the story, Morgana had no mark on her wrist."

"Then who was Merlin's soulmate?" Hermione asks, the question burning at the tip of her tongue.

"Can't you guess?" Remus chuckles, his eyes on the tall, painted form of a wizard.

At first, Hermione is at a loss, and she's ready to say so when it hits her. It's so obvious it takes her breath away, and she wonders how she didn't see it before—didn't see how Merlin only stands tall because he's protecting Camelot behind him, where the king's banners are raised high in the sky. "Arthur," she breathes. "It's Arthur, isn't it?"

It shouldn't feel like her whole world has changed. In the grand scheme of things, the story of a legendary wizard and his soulmate shouldn't matter to Hermione this much; and yet it does.

But it reminds of all she knows about soulmates (or well, what little she's heard about), how it all comes from books and stories, and how the only voice among all these who ever disagreed with them was Harry, and it isn't that she didn't believe her brother, because she did, and she still does, but somehow, hearing it from someone else too gives it a greater scope.

Remus' amused smile turns bitter. "Yeah, it's Arthur," he snorts. "Not really something they'd want to be spread around, you see, especially when they're trying to tell the world that soulmates are dangerous and unstable."

Still feeling a little faint at this revelation, Hermione nods. "No, it's not," she agrees.

It really isn't: even if most historians agree that Arthur can't have existed—or that, if he did in fact exist, Camelot probably wasn't as big of a thing as the stories made it look—and that Merlin wasn't an actual magician (since those don't exist), the fact remains that Arthurian legends are important.

They're some of the first stories children hear, after fairy tales and the like—or at least, it was that way for Hermione—and that matters, to a child.

They start walking again, in silence this time, and Hermione keeps her eyes from wandering to the other paintings she sees. She's not sure she's ready to handle another revelation like the one she's just had so soon after the first; especially as her mind is still stuck on that one.

Still stuck on the fact that, here, there's proof that centuries ago, people thought soulmates could build things together instead of being doomed to destroy each other and the world—and yes, in the stories Camelot died with Arthur, but before that, it had been glorious.

It feels oddly unsettling, to think that there was a time where, maybe, people like her wouldn't have been hunted.

"So, this is what you do, then?" she finally asks, as Remus leads her up a pale marble staircase. "Recover stories, investigate history," she elaborates when Remus only sends her a curious look.

"Sometimes," Remus nods, smirking mysteriously.

He stops in front of an old but solid wooden door near the top of the staircase. Looking around, Hermione sees similar doors a bit further in the corridor the stairs have led them to. For some reason, that sight makes her smile.

Remus digs around in his pockets with muttered curses, before finally handing Hermione a silver key with a triumphant huff. "There," he says, placing the cool metal in the palm of her hand, "this is the key to your room—I brought your stuff up earlier, and we try to keep these rooms somewhat furnished, so you should have everything you need; but if you don't, make a list and we'll see what we can do about it."

Hermione smiles thankfully as she curls her fingers around the key.

"I thought that you might appreciate the opportunity to freshen up a bit before we continued this little 'tour'," Remus adds, nose wrinkling a little. "Maybe shower and change, too, if you want. Make yourself at home."

"Thanks," Hermione replies, unspeakably grateful. A shower sounds divine right now, but even just splashing some water on her face would be a luxury. Remus' words have made her painfully aware of how long she's been in these clothes, and it makes her skin itch. Her headache is back, too, or perhaps it had never really left at all, and Hermione resists the urge to rub at her temples valiantly. "A shower sounds delightful right now."

"Yeah, the girls thought you might like that," he laughs. He shifts a little on his feet, fingers playing with the hem of his shirt when Hermione doesn't move. "I, err, I'll be back in like, half an hour? Will that be enough time for you? I'll escort you downstairs."

"Half an hour sounds perfect," Hermione smiles. "Thanks."

He looks a bit like her father like this, awkwardly trying to consider a woman's feelings, and it makes something in Hermione's chest ache. She hasn't lived with her parents for a few years now, but this is still the longest she's been out of contact with them. Working at the tavern where she had found Remus had finally let her check on the internet for news about her parents, so she at least knows that they're fine, but it's a very different thing from being able to see that for herself.

She can't help but wonder if they know what happened to her, if they were told anything, or if maybe they simply think that she decided to run away and not talk to them anymore. She can't remember the last thing she said to them, can't remember if it was anything meaningful, or simply the dull niceties that came in a phone conversation when you didn't know what to say. She hopes it was the former rather than the latter.

She listens to the sound of Remus' retreating footsteps for a few moments before she shakes her head and tries to drag herself out of this funk. The key slides into the lock smoothly, and the door slides open more easily than Hermione would have thought possible, considering how heavy the wood looks.

It's like stepping into another century, a bubble of medieval times trapped in an abandoned castle, there only for Hermione's eyes.

She steps inside slowly, carefully, and the door clicks shut behind her as she lets out a bewildered laugh at the sight in front of her.

The room isn't big, but it has everything she thinks she could ever need: a large bed with red and gold covers and so many cushions that she has to wonder if she'll manage to fit in there or if those pillows will just bury her, a lacquered wooden desk whose dark shine makes Hermione's fingers twitch with the need to touch, and a tall wardrobe that looks like something she could have found at a flea market.

The stone floor is covered with cream and red carpets, and Hermione is very thankful for that fact—she's rather sure stepping barefooted on that floor would be chilling otherwise.

Her bag is there, just like Remus had told her it would be, propped up against the bed. It looks kind of pitiful, to be honest, dwarfed by the dimensions of the room, but somehow, Hermione doesn't feel out of place here.

Or rather, she feels like she could learn to belong here; like she could get used to this place. It's a dangerous thought to have, but she's too tired of running to care.

She grabs a clean set of clothes with greedy hands and ducks into the adjacent room, which she guesses correctly leads to the bathroom.

For a medieval-ish castle, the shower has better water pressure than almost anywhere Hermione's ever been to. The warm water that cascades on her skin does wonder to make her feel human again; and Hermione leaves the shower behind regretfully, a cloud of steam following her and tickling at her wet skin.

She wraps herself in the fluffiest towel she's ever felt and wipes the mirror clean. She's relieved to see that this time, the girl in the reflection is herself, and not some stranger she'd never seen before.

She's also slightly disappointed, though, and it's a sour feeling that lingers at the back of her throat like that one time she'd tried a cigarette and had ended up choking on smoke. It brings her eyes to her wrist in an echo of what that blond girl had done, and Hermione almost drops her towel in shock.

Her mark, blurry for so long, stands out against her skin in stark, black letters. _Fleur Delacour_ , it reads, and Hermione finds herself tracing the letters absently. She's not sure what she expected, really—a revelation, maybe, or perhaps for the letters to sizzle hot on her skin. She'd have thought that getting a mark hurt, but so far, the most it's done is itch a little, and even that, she's sure, is mostly her mind bringing her attention to it rather than some characteristic of the mark itself.

She dresses in a daze, sitting on the corner of the bed and looking at her wrist as she tries to tug her shoes on with only one hand.

God only knows how she snaps herself out of it, and she reaches for her bag with a sigh. She finds her phone right where she had left it, at the bottom of it, and she has to wonder if they even bothered to search her. She had assumed they had—which is why she's shifting through her meager possessions now—but the more she thinks about it, the more it seems to appear that they didn't bother.

Her phone—an old flip phone type that she only got because it was the cheapest thing she could get—doesn't have any of the apps she used to enjoy on her old smartphone, but considering that she only needed it to get phone calls from her boss, that hadn't mattered, and it still doesn't.

Hermione watches it turn on with feverish taps of her right foot, resisting the urge to bite her nails. This is a bad idea. She knows it's a bad idea, but she can't help it—they told her that she was in Scotland, and it's a start, but Hermione refuses to stay in a place she doesn't know the exact location of. She can't be somewhere she doesn't know how to get out of, where she could end up running in circles trying to leave.

Sure, her phone doesn't have a GPS/map app like the more modern options, but it is able to tell her where she's at, and Hermione scribbles down the coordinates on a piece of paper that she tucks back in her bag, also saving it quickly into a note on her phone, just in case.

She's just in time, too, because Remus knocks on her door just as Hermione is turning her phone back off, and slipping it into her jeans' pocket.

 **.x.**

What Remus calls the Great Hall looks like a university cafeteria, if universities were built inside castles and if cafeterias actually looked inviting. It's also ridiculously big, considering that Hermione can only see half a dozen people, herself and Remus included—and Remus excuses himself almost immediately, leaving her "in good company".

The food, she's glad to find out, also looks much better than anything she's ever found in cafeterias—even if it is just breakfast food.

"Seriously, where do you get this stuff? How does the food look so good here?" she asks, putting down her tray next to Luna, who pauses with her fork halfway to her mouth to smile at her sunnily, while Daphne, who sits across from her, scowls and tugs her arm down.

"Luna, don't do that or you're going to get eggs everywhere again, and then the boys will take that as an excuse to start a food fight, _again_."

Daphne's right neighbor, a dirty-blond haired boy, looks offended by the very implication. "I would never start a food fight, Daphne, come one," he protests.

Daphne doesn't even look at him as she rolls her eyes, saying, "I know you wouldn't, Neville, but unfortunately you're not the only one here." She keeps staring pointedly at the man sitting on her left, who looks like he's trying very hard not to chuckle.

"Hey, guilty as charged," he replies, raising his hands before him defensively. "I never claimed I wouldn't do it."

"Food fights improve morale, too," Luna adds, sipping at a tall glass of orange juice.

Daphne shoots her a betrayed look, throwing her hands up in the air with a snarl.

"I don't know what else you expected," the nameless boy smirks. "It's Luna—of course, she'd approve of food fights." He turns toward Hermione so suddenly she almost jumps in her seat, extending a hand toward her. "I'm Seamus, by the way. And that's Neville," he adds, pointing at the other boy, who waves at her with a shy grin. "It's nice to meet you—we don't get a lot of new faces around here."

"It's nice to meet you, too," Hermione replies, shaking his hand instinctively. "I'm Hermione."

"Yes, we've heard," Seamus replies, dark brown eyes twinkling with mirth as he tilts his head toward Daphne and Luna. "Daphne said you came in with them and Remus."

"Did she also say that they drugged my water so that I slept all the way here?" Hermione asks, arching an eyebrow at him.

To his credit, Seamus' enthusiasm does falter before he laughs it off. "They did it to me, too," he says, commiserating. "Sucks, doesn't it?"

Hermione is surprised to find herself huffing out a laugh at that. "I'll drink to that," she says, raising her glass of orange juice in a mock cheer.

The moment the liquid hits her tongue, she spits it out, sputtering. " _That_ ," she says, wiping her mouth, looking at the bright liquid like she doesn't recognize it (which she doesn't), "isn't _orange juice_."

Even Daphne laughs at that, though she, at least, hides her amusement better than the others.

"No, sorry. We call it pumpkin juice, for the color," Seamus explains, lips twitching up in a grin. "Neville here is the one to make it—he's also the one responsible for the food supply, here, since you wanted to know—and he refuses to give us the recipe. Alas, he's also gotten us all addicted to the stuff, so you'll probably have a hard time finding any other kind of juice to drink in the morning," he adds, shooting Neville a heatless glare, which only causes the other man to smirk into his own drink as he rolls his eyes.

"Or you can take coffee," Daphne interjects, gesturing at the fuming cup on her own tray.

"Yeah, you can drink coffee," Seamus replies, pronouncing the word _coffee_ like one would _snake_ or _spider_ or anything equally distasteful and dangerous. "If you're not feeling adventurous."

Ignoring Daphne's haughty scoff, he turns back toward Hermione, eyes sparking challengingly. "So, Hermione, are you feeling adventurous today?"

Hermione licks her lips, looking down at her still mostly full glass pensively. The taste that lingers in her mouth isn't bad, per se—a little tart, maybe, and definitely not as biting as orange juice, but she doesn't think she disliked it entirely. At the very least, it warrants another test, to see if her spitting it out was only surprise, or if there was something else at play.

Seamus cheers as Hermione takes another sip, and then another, until she's finished the drink without even realizing it. She blinks, and licks her lips again, chasing after the taste. Yes, she can definitely see how the others have supposedly gotten 'addicted' to it.

They all calm down a bit after Seamus high-fives Luna and then Neville—Daphne remains imperturbable when he raises his hand toward her, arching her eyebrow in a silent 'I don't think so' that Hermione thinks is very impressive—and Hermione finds that the rest of the food tastes just as good as it looks.

The company is great, too, and Hermione finds that knowing she wasn't the only one to end up here by being drugged without her consent eases the sting of it quite a bit. It still doesn't make it right, or okay, but it makes it easier to move past it.

They're all just finishing up when Remus strolls back in, and he's not alone.

He's in full discussion with a tall man who looks like he could be Hermione's grandfather—if Hermione's grandfather looked like some version of Gandalf from a world where Gandalf didn't wear robes but rather an ugly velvet suit—and a blonde girl about Hermione's height stands to his left, half a step behind the duo.

At first, Hermione thinks her shy, but she dismisses that thought almost as soon as it crosses her mind. No shy person stands with a back that straight, or walks with as much desperate determination. She looks oddly familiar, too, and it makes it impossible for Hermione's eyes not to drift the girl's way.

As the trio nears their table, Hermione finds herself rising despite herself as the others do.

"Professor Dumbledore," they greet respectfully, and the old man, blue eyes twinkling merrily behind half-moon glasses, greets them back.

"And really, I haven't been a Professor in years—how many times do I have to tell you to just call me Albus?"

"At least one more time, Professor," Seamus quips cheekily.

Professor Dumbledore—Albus?—huffs out a fond laugh, before turning to Hermione.

Unconsciously, she straightens up.

"You must be Hermione, then," he says with a grandfatherly smile. "Remus told me that you were Harry's sister?"

But before Hermione can nod, or say anything, the blonde girl steps forward, eyes blazing with the desperate light that had made Hermione notice her earlier.

"I'm Gabrielle," she says, eyes flicking up and down Hermione's body quickly as she shoves her way past both Albus and Remus. "And we need to talk."

I-What?" Hermione blurts out, looking at the others for an indication of what's going on. Whatever it is, though, it can't be good. Not when Remus is openly wincing, and Albus, who so far has only been cheerful, looks so grim.

"I'm Gabrielle Delacour," the girl repeats, and the pit in her stomach grows as Hermione can guess at where this is going. "And you're Hermione Granger." Her eyes are very blue, and Hermione's heart skips a beat as she realizes why she thought this girl looked familiar before.

She wants to say something—anything—to make Gabrielle stop, or at least pause, so that Hermione can make sense of all this, but the blonde girl goes on mercilessly.

"My sister is named Fleur, and you're her soulmate."


	7. Chapter 7: the story of Gabrielle

_Word count:_ 2333

 **Chapter 7:** **the story of Gabrielle (part one)**

 _ **France, the Delacours' Estate, 3 years ago**_

Gabrielle can tell that her sister is hiding something from her almost immediately. Even though Fleur is almost eight years older than her, they've always been very close, and there is nothing—well, nothing _age appropriate_ anyway—that Gabrielle doesn't know about her older sister. Nothing.

So, yeah, when soon after her twenty-first birthday, Fleur starts to withdraw on herself, Gabrielle notices.

Fleur doesn't even try to be subtle about it, too. She looks scared all the time, and she wears long sleeves even though it's summer and she hates the heat. She also refuses to go to the beach with them, or when she doesn't, she stays out of the water when Gabrielle knows that her sister loves swimming more than anything else.

Their parents are concerned too, Gabrielle can see it, but whenever Gabrielle tries to talk to them about it, they just say that it's probably Fleur having to adjust to being an adult, now. As if Fleur wasn't already the most adult person Gabrielle knows—parents not included.

But nevermind them—Gabrielle can figure out the mystery of what's up with her sister on her own. She's always had a knack for that kind of thing, it can't be that difficult to solve this one.

 **.x.**

It's lucky it's still summer for a good month and a half—summer holidays, that is—because otherwise, Gabrielle would never manage to find the find to spy on her sister half as efficiently.

And Fleur doesn't even have the decency to keep a diary anymore—she stopped when Gabrielle was seven, and okay, that might have been because Gabrielle kept looking into it, but still, that's no excuse for making their lives so much more difficult.

Gabrielle lasts a week, following her sister around and trying to figure out what bothers her so much—she's not being threatened or anything, which, given the level of stress Fleur seems to show, was Gabrielle's first _and_ second guesses—but when nothing gives, she decides that asking her sister might be the best option.

Or well, the only option that might give her some results, since, at this point, she's decided any hint of an answer is better than the nothing she has now.

Because Fleur isn't getting better. In fact, if anything, she's getting worse: she's not sleeping (those bags under her eyes may be cleverly concealed but the makeup she uses is not) and she's barely eating too, pushing her food around on her plate like no one will notice if she spreads her food out enough.

Well, Gabrielle notices, and she worries.

She finds her sister on the beach, sitting cross-legged and bare-footed on the sand. She's wearing jean shorts and a thin white shirt, and it has long sleeves. She's tracing some kind of symbols in the sand with her index fingers, looking almost wistful, but when Gabrielle approaches, she wipes them away, turning to face her sister with a grin that is too wide to be true.

"What are you doing here, Gabrielle? Shouldn't you be helping Mum with the garden?"

Gabrielle snorts as she plops down next to her sister. "She told me to get out of there, because apparently I would eat all the berries instead of picking them if I stayed," she replies, pouting.

Fleur laughs. "Well, she's not wrong—didn't you get sick last year from doing that?"

Gabrielle crosses her arms, pout more pronounced now. "I would have been fine this time, I know when I should stop, now."

"I bet you do," Fleur says, laughing. "But really, why are you here? I can't imagine anything Mum said would have been enough to keep you away from these berries if you wanted them," she jokes.

"I… I was worried about you," Gabrielle confesses, staring straight into her sister's dark blue eyes. "I know that something's happened to you, and I can see that you have a secret and that you're worried too, but you know you can tell me anything. I'm your _sister_ , Fleur—you can trust me with anything, you know that, right?"

Fleur sighs, flinching a little as she looks away. "I do know that, Gabrielle, but this isn't some harmless little thing—this isn't me trying out Mum's makeup when I was fifteen, or me sneaking out to a party after dark. This is important, and dangerous." Her eyes soften. "I just—it wouldn't be safe for you to be involved in this."

Gabrielle fights back a shiver as she looks at her sister more closely. There's something wild and scared in those eyes, something Gabrielle's only ever seen once before—in a wild cat she had found one summer, hurt and alone. She had wanted to bring it back home to help it, but when she had approached it, it had hissed at her and slashed thin, red lines of fire on her hand.

She had thought it had been mean, but her mother had explained, as she cleaned the cuts, that the cat had just been scared.

"He probably thought you were going to hurt it," she had said.

"Me?" Gabrielle had replied, drawing back in surprise. "Why would it think that?"

"I don't know," her mother had shrugged sadly. "But it's probably best we leave it alone," she had said, tugging on Gabrielle's hand until she followed.

"But I wanted to help it," Gabrielle had whined as they left, looking up at her mother with tearful eyes.

"I know, sweetie. But there are some things you can't help with," she had replied, wiping Gabrielle's tears away softly.

Fleur really does look a bit like that cat, now—like she'll run away or attack if Gabrielle pushes any harder, and so very scared, but Gabrielle may not have been able to help that cat, but nothing will keep her from helping her sister.

"If you're involved, I'm involved," she tells Fleur, staring at her with all the determination she can muster.

Fleur smiles sadly, and Gabrielle notices that she's rubbing her wrist.

Fleur's been doing a lot of that, lately—even with her wrists covered, she keeps touching the inside of her right wrist, and Gabrielle's stomach fills with dread as her mind comes up with an idea as to why.

She shies away from it, wants to pretend it can't be—and it _can't_ , please, this is her sister, the one who always was there for her—but it fits. Oh god, does it fit.

With a lump in her throat, Gabrielle slowly reaches forward and pulled Fleur's right wrist to herself. She rolls up the sleeve slowly, her fingers trembling, and she's hit with a wave of relief when the skin appears bare.

 _Maybe she had been wrong_ , she thinks; _but no_. One look at Fleur's eyes is enough to tell her that she's not.

The makeup rubs away easily under her fingers, and Gabrielle uncovers a whole tattoo on her sister's skin with a heavy stomach.

She's not sure why her sister is letting her do this, letting her see when she had obviously been trying so hard to hide it, but from this close, the dark bags under Fleur's eyes are unmistakable, and no amount of foundation can quite hide how tired she is. Perhaps Fleur is too tired to keep on hiding, then.

" _Hermione Granger_ ," Gabrielle reads out loud, fingers tracing the tiny black letters. "Doesn't sound very French to me," she adds, twisting her lips into a smile.

"Yeah, it doesn't, does it?" Fleur snorts, and Gabrielle is happy to see some amusement sparkling in her sister's eyes.

Gabrielle lets go of Fleur's wrist. "So, you have a soulmate, then."

It's not really a question—the proof is there, after all—but Fleur acts like it is anyway. "Seems so," she replies, with a dead smile.

They shiver, almost in synch. They both know the stories, after all: people with soulmates are dangerous. Being bound so closely to someone else makes you do crazy things, and history tells them that almost every notable incident can be traced back to a pair of soulmates who thought they knew better than the rest of the world, and ended up making everyone miserable as a result.

"It won't happen to you," Gabrielle swears, stomach twisting painfully as she looks at her sister pleadingly. "We won't let it—you're _good_ , Fleur, alright? We'll just, we'll hide it, and no one will ever have to know, and if you don't, if you don't meet them, meet her, then you'll be just fine, okay?"

Fleur smiles softly, wrist drawn to herself. She's rubbing it again, Gabrielle notices, and she really, really wants her to stop. She simply swallows instead of saying anything about it.

"Yeah," Fleur replies, "I'll be fine."

She's lying and they both know it, but for now, that lie is the only thing they can do.

They should report Fleur to the authorities, but then they'll take her away. It's what they do, when someone has a soulmate—and yes, it's for the best, and for everyone's protections, but Gabrielle doesn't want to say goodbye to her sister if she doesn't have to.

They sit in silence after that, and despite the sun, Gabrielle feels cold inside.

 _How long_ , she wonders, _do they have until someone finds out? How long can they keep this a secret?_

 **.x.**

They only get a handful of months, in the end. It's rather stupid, what unveils Fleur's status, but after what felt like so long, they had gotten complacent.

One moment they're laughing, walking in the streets of Nice and enjoying the late autumn sun if not the people surrounding them, and the next Fleur's right sleeve snags on something and rips with a loud noise that sounds deafening to Gabrielle's ears.

Fleur freezes right where she stands, skin paling rapidly. Her hand flies to cover her wrist, but it's too late. Somehow, some way, people have seen them, have seen the mark on Fleur's wrist where her makeup had run, and already they're starting to make calls, backing away from the two blonde sisters like they're contagious.

"You'll tell them you didn't know, right?" Fleur whispers to her urgently.

"Huh?" Gabrielle asks confusedly, heart pounding in her chest as she starts to panic.

"If they ask you— _when_ they ask you, you'll tell them you didn't know I had a soulmark, alright?" Fleur repeats, blue eyes burning with a desperation that almost makes them black.

"I- No, Fleur, I can't lie—I'll tell them you're good, please, you know you are, they can't just take you away, _please_."

Fleur smiles sadly. "I love you, Gabrielle," she mouths, before she straightens up, her face turning cold as ice. She pushes Gabrielle into the crowd, lips pulling into a kind of mean smirk that looks utterly out of place on her face.

"Bet you never saw that coming, now, did you?" she asks, and Gabrielle would laugh if she didn't feel like crying—Fleur is reenacting every bad villainy soulmate cliché in the books, and the people are eating it up.

"Fleur, please," Gabrielle starts to beg, before she realizes that no matter what she says now, she'll play into her sister's game.

 _I'm sorry_ , Fleur's blue eyes seem to say, and Gabrielle mouths it back quickly.

This is her sister's last gift, she realizes, and despite how much she hates it, Gabrielle can't bear to take it away from her. Not when she doesn't have a good alternative—or any alternative, for that matter.

Fleur continues ranting, but Gabrielle's ears are filled with white noise, and she doesn't hear a word of it. The crowd closes in on her, pulling her away from her sister and toward what they believe is safety—as if she needs protection from her sister—and someone is crooning in her ears that it's going to be alright.

"You couldn't have known," the voice says, and it sounds too kind for the things it's implying.

It's getting hard to breathe, and Gabrielle is thankful when she finds herself being pushed toward a free seat, a glass of fresh water in her hands that she can pretend to sip from as she watches her sister being taken away.

Her hands shake so much that she spills more than half the glass on herself, but she barely notices. She keeps staring at the place her sister stood even once the crowd disperses, and she's also barely aware that someone's asking her questions about her sister. She doesn't even know what she replies, but it must be satisfying enough, because someone pats her on the shoulder, and then tells her that she's free to go.

She stumbles back home in a daze.

Her parents are there, waiting for her, and somehow, that's when it hits her—Fleur is gone, and Gabrielle had been entirely helpless to stop it. Fleur, who had helped her so much, who had always been there for Gabrielle when she had had even the slightest hint of a problem, was gone, and Gabrielle hadn't done _anything_ to stop it from happening.

She had just gone along with it.

"Oh, sweetie, it's going to be okay," her mother whispers into her hair as she draws Gabrielle into a hug. "It's all going to be okay."

Her father moves closer, pulling them both into a hug that makes Gabrielle feel so safe she can't stop her tears from falling.

"It's going to be okay," her father echoes, and Gabrielle doesn't reply, just hugs them tighter.

It's not, she knows. They've lost Fleur, lost part of their family, but maybe—just maybe—they can still get her back.

There has to be a way. After all, her sister isn't bad, and she's certainly not _evil_ —surely whoever took her will see that, and then they'll bring her back.

They just have to wait.


End file.
